"Beyond number crunching" : applying qualitative techniques in sport marketing research

Valid and reliable research is pivotal to successful sport marketing strategy. Market research may be gathered via either quantitative or qualitative means. This paper explores the theoretical background and practical applications of qualitative research techniques. It explains the appropriate context for qualitative approaches, and discusses sampling procedures with particular emphasis on the powerful but simple technique known as theoretical sampling. In addition, it clarifies and explores data analysis procedures. The purpose of this paper is to provide sport market research practitioners with a model for implementing qualitative methodologies in sport marketing campaigns.

Strategic sport marketing

"Strategic Sport Marketing is a comprehensive text for sport management students as well as practising sport administrators. Integrating the unique product characteristics of sport with traditional marketing theory, it presents a strategic sport marketing model that recognises the diverse markets for sport: participants, sponsors, spectators at the event and lounge-room fans." "Case studies and sportviews selected from international sports and media illustrate the unique features of sport marketing. With detailed examples and step-by-step processes, Strategic Sport Marketing is a practical tool and theoretical guide to sport marketing internationally." "The second edition of this widely used text is fully revised and updated. It includes two new chapters: 'Customer satisfaction and service quality' by Linda van Leeuwen and 'Sport and the Internet' by Daniel Evans. There is also an increased focus on sponsorship and the role of services theory in the delivery of sport."

Sport marketing

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter, readers will be able to:
• appreciate that sport marketing follows basic marketing principles but with a change of emphasis to suit particular sporting contexts;
• recount how marketing's role can be applied to sport and sport organisations with special emphasis on marketing's '4 Ps';
• evaluate the application of marketing strategies and tactics to chosen sport codes;
• identify different groups of sport fans;
• understand the role marketing planning and marketing management play in staging a sport event.

International sport marketing : practical and future research implications

Purpose – Sport is a global product and service that many people around the world enjoy playing, watching and participating in. Whilst there has been an abundance of global media attention on sporting events such as the Olympics and World Football Cup, there seems to be a lack of integration between the sports marketing and international business disciplines both from a practical and also academic standpoint. This paper aims to discuss international sport marketing and why it is an important attribute of business-to-business marketing.

Design/methodology/approach – The aim of the paper is to provide practical implications and research avenues for those seeking to further investigate international sport marketing as a unique area of academic research. The introduction to the paper focuses on the importance of sport to the global economy and how entrepreneurship is ingrained in many sport businesses and organizations. Next, different areas of international business management that relate to entrepreneurial sport marketing ventures are discussed in terms of future research directions and practical implications. These include how entrepreneurial sport ventures affect internationalization, branding, corporate social responsibility, tourism, regional development, marketing and action sports.

Findings – The paper concludes by finding that there are numerous research avenues for future research on international sport marketing that combine different areas of marketing together with the sport marketing and international business literature. In addition, there is enormous potential for linking the sports marketing and international business literature through focusing on entrepreneurial sport ventures that occur worldwide.

Research limitations/implications – The authors demonstrate the need to take an international perspective of sports marketing and business-to-business relationships.

Practical implications – The paper discusses how and why sport firms interact in the international marketplace and how future competition will benefit from more sport-based business-to-business partnerships.

Originality/value – The paper examines the important area of international sports marketing and how businesses that are both profit and non-profit orientated collaborate. The paper explores the concept of international sports marketing, and discusses the practical and future research implications of this exciting new field of marketing research.

A conceptual model for sport services marketing research : integrating quality, value and satisfaction

This paper advances our understanding of the relationship between quality, value and satisfaction in the context of spectator sport services. This is achieved through an analysis and examination of relevant secondary data culminating in a conceptual model Although extensive research has been conducted in the three separate areas of quality, value and satisfaction, to date no work has been reported attempting to develop macro models that capture the concepts and their potential interrelationships. Such macro models could enhance the communication and stimulate further research for sport marketing scholars. This paper proposes a model apposite for further research and in the process leads to the potential confirmation, rejection or, indeed, adaptation of the conceplualization of sport services.

The sport spectator satisfaction model : A conceputal framework for understanding the satisfaction of spectators

Customer satisfaction is associated with numerous positive business outcomes and is recognised as an important field of study. However, only limited research has addressed the satisfaction of sport spectators, with even fewer studies examining the determinants of this satisfaction. Yet an understanding of how spectators arrive at evaluations of satisfaction or dissatisfaction provides a useful insight for directing marketing and operational efforts. The Sport Spectator Satisfaction Model (SSSM) is an extension of the Disconfirmation of Expectations Model (DEM) accommodating unique aspects of the sport product, as well as accommodating the core and peripheral dimensions of the spectator service. The SSSM depicts club identification and the win/lose phenomenon as considerable influences on the satisfaction spectators derive from the game and its peripheral services. The SSSM integrates marketing theory, social identity theory and sport marketing theory to broaden our understanding of spectator satisfaction and provide a platform for further research.

Consumer construction of sport consumption experiences through role play : a literature review

Evidence exists in the literature that many traditional consumer behaviours have fundamentally different meanings when considered in an experiential context. This paper posits that voicing during the experiential consumption of sport may in fact be a factor of experiential consumption rather than an expression of dissatisfaction as in the traditional complaint behaviour model. This is significant in the interpretation of experiential sport consumption where vocalising appears to serve purposes other than complaining. This paper revises the traditional complaint behaviour literature for explanations about vocalising and then offers some alternate conceptual propositions using experiential consumption literature.

Sport-based entrepreneurship : towards a new theory of entrepreneurship and sport management

The entrepreneurship and sport management disciplines have grown significantly in the past decade. Sport is an entrepreneurial process as innovation and change are key elements of sport. The aim of this paper is to develop a theory of entrepreneurship in sports management by investigating the relationship between entrepreneurship and sport. The rapidly growing and developing sport marketing discipline provides a basis in which to understand how entrepreneurship occurs through innovation, proactiveness and risk taking activities. This paper discusses the connection between the entrepreneurship and sports management fields and argues that there needs to be more integration with the two fields of study and traditional entrepreneurship theory. A theory of sport-based entrepreneurship is developed and different types of entrepreneurship that occur in sports management are examined. Suggestions for future research and implications for practitioners are discussed.

A content analysis of sponsor representation across professional sport websites : extension of attribute typology

The sport industry has identified the importance of using the internet as a tool that can benefit the organisation. Much like the purpose of entering into sponsorship of sporting events, corporate partners are also attracted to the opportunities that professional sport team websites offer to fulfil similar objectives. The major purpose of this research is to explore the various ways in which sponsor logos are represented across professional sport websites and to extend previous advertising research, specifically the work developing advertising attribute typologies. The subjects for this research are professional sport websites and a qualitative approach is adopted with a content analysis as the main method of analysis used. To ensure reliability and validity within the coding instruments used, percentage agreement and Cohen’s kappa were adopted as indexes to verify this. The findings show sponsors’ logos exist on most professional sport websites and are represented in a variety of ways. Furthermore, a typology for sponsor representation and location across sport websites has been established to present a reliable foundation for future research in the area of consumer attitudes, behaviour and response towards sponsors and their presence on sport websites.

Football-as-war, coach-as-general: analogy, metaphor and management implications

Sporting terms have been used as metaphor and analogy to describe and prescribe life experiences. It has been suggested that the use of sport terminology can assist in the general understanding of complex terms and situations, however, the use of sport as metaphor and analogy for many aspects of social understanding can have negative consequences. The analogy of sport and war seems to be particularly prevalent within football, irrespective of the code or culture in which it is played. This article demonstrates the popular understanding of Australian Rules ‘football as war’ through two complementary studies. The first study investigates the representation of Australian Rules football as war, specifically through the analysis of both images and text on the front covers of the sport ‘lift-out’ sections of two prominent Melbourne newspapers, The Herald Sun and The Age. The second study examines whether people interpret non-war-like images of Australian Rules football in war-like terms. Forty-five undergraduate sport marketing and management students were asked to write about one of four different images of football players and coaches interacting, which revealed that football is understood as war. Further, when prompted by an image of football players and coaches interacting, people in this study interpreted the interactions as consistently war-like. Coaches were portrayed as militaristic generals and the athletes as soldiers. Implications for management, education and practice are discussed.

Key success factors in bidding for hallmark sporting events

Hallmark sporting events often are commercially driven entertainment entities which represent an economically important part of the overall sport industry. Because of the high popularity of international sporting contests, hallmark sporting events attract significant commercial, media, and consumer attention. Cities around the world are beginning to understand the potential of using these events to draw attention to the host city, which is why the market for hallmark sporting events is becoming increasingly competitive. In order to award the hosting of the event to the most suitable organizer, event owners often require potential hosts to bid. The most important elements in this process have been largely based on logical assumptions rather than empirical data. This study focused on the bid process in order to ascertain the important elements essential in achieving a successful bid.